Last Sunday

Here is my report on my trip to New Zealand:

http://www.box.net/public/pfimef8yy8

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Back by popular demand (Chris), my blog!

Wow, being back in the US has been crazy. We stayed in Cali for a few days with Joy's family and had a great time. Great conversations, great campfire on the beach, great salmon birthday lunch, and a great grandma... wait that doesn't really work. But, she is great and Joy's grandma turned 90 while we were there. GREAT TIMING! Joy and I are very thankful to Chris and Ali and Joy's parents for driving us around Cali at $3.45 a gallon, housing us and feeding us!

When we got home we let Daisy in the house and a few minutes later we found her chewing on something green. We discovered our renter put down mouse poison!! So after being home for barely 10 minutes we left for the pet ER. And then 1 hour and $230 later we came home for the rest of the night. And in spite of needing to adjust to our new time zone we had to get up at 2 AM and give Daisy this charcoal stuff to coat her stomach. Thankfully I have a wonderful wife who did it for us so I could rest before work the next day. Unfortunately, I did wake up at 2 AM and could not sleep the rest of the night. Grrr!!

These past 5 days have been insane. There happens to be a lot of catching up you have to do when you leave for 80 days - just so you know. Fortunately we have great friends who are helping us get reacclimated. This weekend I am teaching on the Da Vinci Code for my sunday morning high school class, giving the sermon at our church about New Zealand and missions and then giving the message at our annual Senior Banquet - all this Sunday. Lord... HELP!

I'll try to keep blogging as we work towards becoming full time Steiger missionaries. I know that once we are out in the mission field we will be blogging a ton to keep everyone posted with our lives. PEACE OUT! (Wait, isn't Minnesota a mission field?)

Day 77 - It's complete

77 is our last day eh? Perfection!

We are finished! Its 8 AM on Thursday morning. Our schedule is to PARTY! Today we are meeting at the church for a surprise something... and then for lunch we are going over to Nigel and Rachel's bus (their house, they live in a big bus) for a BBQ! Then at 4:55 we hop the train from Paraparaumu to Wellington, a bus to the airport, a flight at 7:30 to Auckland, a flight from Auckland to LA at 9:45, an arrival at LAX at 2:40 PM, picked up by Joy's family, visit with them until Saturday at 7:50 AM when we fly to Chicago, and then return to Minneapolis on Saturday at 3:49 PM. WHEW! See many of you soon!

I thought my last blog would contain something fun! A list of things that are strange in New Zealand:

- You drive on the left side of the road
- You drive on the right side of the car
- If you are in the left lane turning left and a car in the right lane also needs to turn in that direction, they have the right of way. You need to let them overtake you.
- There are no furnaces or ventilation in NZ houses.
- More yield signs than stop signs
- Everyone text messages because its too expense to make cell phone calls

That's all I can think of now! See you soon!

Day 76 - A Horsey Sunset

Every Wednesday we have been meeting at 'the girls house' for our worship and lectures. Today was the last day we did met there for that and it was sad. I was looking around the room during worship and I was feeling sad that this all had to end (like you do when camps, retreats, trips are over). There are some amazing people here and I am so glad to have spent so much time getting to know all of them. But, I believe this is just the beginning and that God has much more in store for Joy and I... and that gets me rev'd up.

I also watched my last sunset on the beach (Joy was busy with the girls so I was all alone :( ). I have always seen hoofprints from horses on the beach, but tonight I saw a horse gallup by. With the sunset setting on Kapiti island, the ocean and a horse galluping by on the beach - it was a surreal moment. Can you tell I am getting all sentamental in my spirit and emotions? :) Praise God for his grace that we could do and see things like this! Praise Him for all He's done! That has been in my prayers over and over these last days of school.

Day 75 - Family Consulting

David and Jodi gave one last lecture for the school regarding Ministry and Family. I think they need to write a book on this because of the terrible things that often happens to families and children in ministry. They have been able to raise two sons who extremely love the Lord and they have been able to maintain being the closest family I know - despite their crazy lifestyle. David and Jodi have some great perspectives and principles to raising kids in ministry that we could all benefit from. I think I am going to suggest it to him.

After the lecture I began my 10 hours of meetings with Aaron to 'consult' them on their visions in order to help them put practical steps to it. We met with the Brazilians, those who are on the international team in regards to Pastoral Care, Ministry Development and Steiger TV (Steiger's new media team). I am getting good at this consulting thing I think. What a day!

Day 74 - Merry Christmas

This morning I went out the beach and read through Philipians and Galatians. I am continuing my study of the writings of NT Wright and looking at the new testament through his lens. The beach was warm and the waves were tiny. It was like being at Lake Minnetonka. But there were no clouds in the sky and hardly anyone on the beach.

Then in the evening Joy and I walked on the beach as the sun was setting and then we went on a date at Swell - the local beach front restaurant - for one last date before we leave. It was very fun but interesting because they were playing Christmas music. I think the owners know that we are Christians so whenever people from our group come in they play this music because its religious. Strange.

Sorry I haven't blogged, this last week was very full on!! I hope you enjoy my summaries of the past week. We leave NZ in 2.5 days.

Any requests for certain types of NZ photos before I leave?

Day 73 - Itinerary Changes

Joy and I changed our plane tickets today and we will be staying in New Zealand for 3 more months.

JUST KIDDING!

But we did change our tickets to stay in California on the way back for 1 extra day. It works out really great because its Joy's grandma's birthday and a large chunk of her family will be in LA to celebrate and now we will too. So, we will be returning Saturday, May 13 at 3:50 PM. My mom and our dog will be picking us up!

Tonight Joy and I had the house to ourselves and kept warm by our fireplace. It was a great final Sunday!

Day 72 - SPIT Day

Today was SPIT. We setup a huge stage in the park and about 100 people showed up to watch some bands, eat some sheep and sausage and check out the various workshops we setup. It was a great time of interaction with the general community and the local church. We were able to make some connections with people that we are praying will lead to spiritual discussions.

>>Watch this post over the next 24 hours to see a rare photo of Joy.<<

Day 71 - Seeking God Day VII

Today I read the entire book of Ephesians out loud. It was incredible. I really felt like the Holy Spirit was pointing out things to me. I am excited to continue reading more in large chunks like that. For the past year or so I have been getting bogged down when I try to read an entire book at once. This time it really flowed. And I think reading out loud helps my short attention span. :) Its cool when the Word - that you have read many, many times - suddenly becomes alive in a fresh way.

Then I spent the day on the beach praying out loud for tons of things! It was very, very good! If you are reading this and I know you I probably prayed for you.

After my prayer time I stopped by Aarons house to tell him this idea I had during my prayer time. Aaron also had an idea he got during his prayer time to tell me but he waited for me to tell him. I told him and he stopped me and said it was the same thing that he got. Very cool! We really felt that this wasn't simply a coincidence because there were other things in our conversation that amazingly lined up. God is definitely behind this new season that Steiger is entering into! How exciting to be a part of it!

Day 70 - Title

David continued teaching us today on Steiger values. Today was very good.

Here are a couple points in the form of my famous bullet summaries:

* Getting along with people is not always the best option. The gospel is offensive and confrontational. David expanded this point to his views on ministries that simply feed the poor and take care of the homeless. David says this ministry is absolutely necessary and God is pleased with it but he is concerned that many of these ministries forsake preaching the gospel. He contends that to really help people we need to tell them the good news and not just feed and clothe them. This lead to a good discussion later in the day.

* If something doesn't work, stop doing it.

* Give your ideas away. God will bless you with more ideas if you don't hold so tightly to your ideas and do things like charge for your ideas.

* Below is a characteristic comparison list... the left is alive, right is dead
An alive ministry | A dead ministry
Goes against the establishment | Very popular, widely accepted
Very messy and hard to hold back | Very structured and predictable
Sets trends | Always searching for the latest trend
Simple, childlike | Complicated
Sacrificaial | Materialistic
Doesn't care about image | Image conscious
Over their head | Manageable
Evangelistic | Inclusive and inward focused

* Missions is not a place to express yourself, its seeking God for what he wants you to do.

Then after lecture we had a meeting at David and Jodi's regarding the international stuff. Aaron and I have been working hard at helping organize all the amazing vision that we've been talking about the past 2 months. We are using some business planning skills that Jake showed us while we were here. This is a very, very exciting time for Steiger! I am excited to begin talking about it back home.

SEEKING GOD DAY TOMORROW!

Day 69 - Rat Funeral

David briefly talked about how they don't want the cart before the horse in regards to structure and management and vision and God's leading. He sees many Christian organizations being led by the management and end up sacrificing their passion. He does not want Steiger to get even close to that as it expands.

Then he gave a talk on the cross and on more values of Steiger and leadership. The cross talk was very passionate and emotional. His main point surrounded on 1 Cor 1 and the foolishness of the cross. Then he began talking on the power of the Cross as talked about in 1 Cor 2. "When you lift up the cross it's like spiritual nuclear energy."

Then his talk on the values of Steiger made these points:

* Do not judge other ministries or organizations.

* Push the borders. A guy David knew was trying to reach out to the local punks in a city and one of the punks told him his rat died. So David's friend said to the punk, "lets have a funeral." The kid got excited and he invited all his friends to the church and had a rat funeral. At the funeral David's friend preached the gospel and many of the punks gave their life to Christ. HA!

* Don't be an arm chair general. Lead by example. Delegation is good but not the key to leadership. It's important to get authority in things by actually doing them. And don't just strategize - do!! It can feel really good to sit in a board meeting and plan but then not actually execute.

* Remember that we are just a small part of what God is doing in the world.

Day 68 - Undunceifires

Today a local Pastor and his wife ATTEMPTED to talk about singleness and marriage. Well, they ended up just speaking about singleness because it lead to a big discussion about how the church and culture deals with people who are single. Their main point was that singles shouldn't be desperate to find a mate but enjoy their single years and dream big with God and do big things for God. But it was brought up that the church and culture make it difficult to do big things when you are single and that you are almost treated as a leper the older that you get.

We have our SPIT festival in the park this Saturday and a couple guys are putting together a band called 'The Undunceifires' (sic). Their genre is going to be 'edumetal' which is short for educational metal. They are going to sing about inventions. Hilarious!

Day 67 - Swell

Tonight Aaron and Jen (my cousin and his fiance) had a special dinner at a restaurant on the beach called Swell. It was a great night of celebrating them and their relationship. I was the emcee and Joy and I both stood and said a few things about them. They are a very godly couple with a great future ahead of them.